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Comments
There was an update for the Blacksmith outfit. I just downloaded it through DIM. Don't know what changed though.
I tried to make sure people understood that the product file corruption was a Daz Connect issue. I even put it in bold in my original message. But it is good that DIM is working correctly.
I was surprised to see another bulky character right after the Brute. I wouldn't have minded if Vlad was demonic or a vampie, even though I hate monsters. That being said, no Black Vlad so here is Vladimirius
Ah, I guess I misunderstood - you only said you had trouble installing it with Connect. I thought that just meant you initially tried to install it with connect and it wouldn't.
Ah! I see the misunderstanding. Poseidon would not install with Daz Connect. It didn't even show up to be installed. I later installed it with the offline Daz Connect package and discovered that even that was corrupt. "Corrupt" means it puts files on my hard drive, but they are not valid files. DUF files won't load or even uncompress, and PNG files are not even valid image files. The files are just junk. This Daz Connect corruption has been going on for over a month. It affects a fraction of new products and even product updates. I have to submit a help request each time and wait for a fix in order to use the product with Daz Connect.
@Barbult can you explain why Daz Connect is preferable to DIM? If you download with Connect, and then there is an update to a product, does Connect make you aware? Trying to learn the difference and why some would prefer one over the other.
Well, I'm not @Barbult, but no, Daz Connect doesn't tell you if there are updates. But it's easy to see if there are updates. You just click on the File tab and then at the bottom of that window, there are other tabs, One of them is Updates. You click on it, and then select All Products and then it will show icons for all the updates (if any).
I like Connect because of the Smart Content, Plus it's all visual. You can also view by product. That will just show you all the parts that belong to that product, so you don't have to go searching for accessories or materials, etc. But alot of older products don't have smart content.
As for the problems that @Barbult encountered, I am seeing pretty much the same thing already discribed.
Anything installed via Smart Content will also have a little icon on the top right of the image that shows there is an update - a sort of circle with an arrow in it, so you know to go to "Updates" tab and update it.
Thanks for the explanation re updating, @kevinh I use DIM and everything shows in smart content (which I also use). Sometimes items in smart content are grayed, then I double click on them and they get loaded - I believe through connect. Since that does happen every once in a while, I will start checking for updates the way you described.
Hmm some things seem to be getting fixed. The icon image for "MRL Buzzcut and Scars" is finally showing correctly @Barbult.
Regarding the gens. I loaded Walker HD for Vlad, the circumcised map has been applied to a uncircumcised gens, I didn't notice until the render was 90% done as I left the computer to it. I can fix it but not sure why it happened. It must be a bug.
What's with all the Lost and founds there?
Also when looking in the Lost and Found it said to turn off limits. I assume that is for posing. Why is that?
Thanks.
Those who have Ryker can you check to see if i'm going crazy? The promo states "LIE Tattoo, LIE Dirty Skin", but when I look at it, it seems to be a skin texture, not a LIE add on.
Most items you buy from other vendors, or freebies you get online won't have Smart Content. I've bought a lot of stuff from Renderosity and CGBytes and the naughtier storefront, and I think I can count the number of items from there with smart content on one hand. It can be added, but it's not an intuitive or quick process.
@dragotx - Yes, though I wish there was an easy way to make everything show up in smart content. What I do is put everything purchased elsewhere in a separate directory (using DIM), so that they are segregated and I know I have to traipse through content library to find what I need. I know some people (many people) love content library, but I just cannot remember everything I have, or where it is, or what other options come with it.
And now, back to Vlad!
@Dreamfarmer, I too was hoping for a less bulky/perhaps more vampy character, particularly as we have had several bulky characters lately. That said, Vlad can add to the gene pool, and his bundle and offers were really, really great. I found Ryker easier to "slenderize" but here are slenderized versions of both Vlad and Ryker, compared to the original versions.
Ryker Face Skin Dirty, Ryker Face Split Lip, and Ryker Face Scar are layered presets (i.e LIE). And even though the one preset says "Face Dirty", I think it actually makes the whole body dirty. Tattos are not LIE, they are regular materials.
I bought the Pro Bundle only because of the 10 free items you get to choose when you buy it. So even though I hadn't planned to get the Pro Bundle, I ended up getting it anyway because of the 10 freebies. All in all, a sure great buy, IMO.
These are my personal opinions, not necessarily facts:
There are very few advantages of Daz Connect over DIM, and in fact there are a few serious problems that actually make it worse.
One advantage is the visual thumbnail displayed in the Install tab to help you select what you want to install. Except sometimes Daz forgets to provide the thumbnail, and you get a white square instead. That happened today on the MRL Buzz Cut product.Then you have to submit a help request and wait for them to fix it. The missing thumbnail doesn't prevent you from installing, it just prevents you from glancing at it and knowing what it is. Daz fixed the MRL product thumbnail later today.
I started using Daz Connect when it first came out. We were told that Daz was going to start encrypting products, and Daz Connect would be the only way to install encrypted products. Very very few encrypted products were ever released, and we haven't seen an encrypted product in way over a year.
When Daz Connect was first available, I thought "here is the new and wonderful thing, I'd better use it". I believe I was wrong, but I kept believing that Daz would fix the problems and make it be "the new and wonderful thing". I'm still waiting. After years, some serious problems haven't been fixed (e.g. no way to reset the DB without losing track of what was previously installed), and new problems keep coming up (e.g. file corruption). There used to be a problem that I haven't seen lately, and that was that every time Jen changed pathing because of an error, Daz Connect did not delete the old path and you got duplicate files installed. I hope that has been fixed.
Many times CS tells my one of my bug reports has been fixed, but Daz Connect never shows an update for the product. When I complain about the missing update to CS, the recommended solution is for me to uninstall, delete all folders for the product, update metadata and reinstall. So, other customers who own the product and use Daz Connect will never know that the product was updated. I only know because I was the one to write the help request. DIM often DOES show an update for that product.
Daz Connect was touted to be faster than DIM, because it was only supposed to have to download a few files for an update instead of all of them. I haven't seen that to be the case. It seems like it always downloads the whole package, even if only one file was changed. If the change is only metadata, then it might only download the metadata. DIM download speed was recently drastically improved. I don't see any speed advantage in Daz Connect.
You do not have to use Daz Connect to use Smart Content. DIM installs metadata for any product that has it. Those products that have metadata will show up in Smart Content and the Product Library "Products" section, just as if they were installed with Daz Connect.
I have often regretted going down the Daz Connect path and consider dumping it all and reinstalling with DIM. But (in spite of my incessant complaining), I am optimistic that someday they will fix Daz Connect. If not, I wish they would kill it and we'll all just use DIM again.
When someone asks, I recommend that they use DIM.
Vladimirius! Ha! What a handsome fellow. There's an NFL player named Barkevious; (his surname is actually Mingo). I thought of that because of your character's name and his football physique. Wonderful job. I really want to ask the mix, but I'm not sure if that is proper etiquette.
Thanks for the history. There is nothing in Daz's past behaviour that would lead me to believe that they are going to fix Daz Connect. Its purpose was encryption. Encryption was (at least for the present) voted down by the customers. So, Connect is in a somewhat similar situation as homeless tech like Hexagon and Carrara, although they were purchased by rather than birthed by Daz.
Anybody know what hair they used in the promotional pictures? It doesn't look like any of the ones in the set and no credit was given in the notes that I can see... I especially like the hair used for HP Ward which is the one I'm trying to figure out...
@SnowPheonix, on the main promo, Ward has the Classic Side Part hair.
It's Classic Side Part Hair for G3 and G8.
Laurie
Just a few Vladimir renders done on a friend's machine (I am waiting for payday before pulling the pin on the pro bundle) so I do not have my normal assets. With this in mind these are not my best work (please be gentle, it is my birthday) :)
I hope these renders do not embarrass me too much.
David
Oh, love that!
They look nice to me. :) Happy Birthday!
Wow - very nice! Vladimirius turned out awesome!
I agree 100% with everything barbult says here. When Smart Content works properly, it's brilliant. When it doesn't and has errors, it's an absolute nightmare. The missing icon images - IE the plain white/grey daz logo - can be fixed by yourself, and is quite easy to do...but it's a pain in the proverbial to have to do it constantly and it can often take a while to get fixed as I believe it's considered low priority. It doesn't bork anything, but as barbult said, it means that when you use Connect for the visuals, you are often just not noticing that product.
And having to uninstall, then manually delete the folder in daz cloud, then go back and reinstall the product from scratch, because an update didn't work properly is also a massive pain in the proverbial.
And then the incredible amount of metadata errors is quite staggering. The amount of files that get categorized as "lost and found" for no earthly reason bamboozles me. Again, doesn't really bork the product and you can still use it but it's annoying!!!!! And icons not having an iray logo on it so you can't tell if it's 3delight or iray because it wasn't split into "materials -> 3dl or materials ->iray" unless you open up the info tab at the bottom and read the filename and HOPE the filename has 3dl or iray in it.
All those RDNA products that hit the store when the merger happened? In the interest of getting them in the store quickly they were ALL categorized lost and found - with the promise that after it was all done and everything sorted out, metadata would be created for them in updates so we can find them easily in connect. And that's not going to happen - i was told by CS that there will be no updates/changes to any metadata on products lower than a certain sku number. Which basically, were all the rdna products. So using connect, I have NO idea where to find them - I have to either remember the name and search, or painstakingly go through lost and found, product by product.
And don't get me started on certain products that require you to use them in steps - they're all thrown together and the PA's hard work in separating them by folder is lost. So with those products, I have to go to "virtual folder" to see how they are supposed to be used.
Barbult hit the nail on the head - connect created for encrypted products and once it was decided to not use encrypted products, the metadata for smart content just fell by the wayside. And I just don't understand how say, a window file, can get put in lost and found, when all the other windows and walls etc are properly put in props. Metadata is not hard. It's finicky and time consuming, but not hard to do. I create metadata for any product I buy outside of daz so it shows in smart content, so my library is consistant. And if dumbkopf me can do it and get it right, why can't QA? Barbult is a lot more diligent than I am at submitting tickets for borked metadata and problems in smart content, because I get cranky and give up. I have quite a few still open tickets regarding it. So many times I've been on the verge on giving up and going back to DIM and content library.
Oh, what a handsome man; bravo, ALLIEKATBLUE! I have Darius 8 and got Vladimir 8 yesterday EVENING (only to see this morning that today you get 10 freebies for buying the base figure
); let's give it a try to mix them...